Until one day, it didn’t.
I took a pregnancy test, and during the painful two-minute countdown I sat on my bathroom floor, imagining how drastically life would change if I was pregnant.
It’d mean morning sickness, weird uncontrollable smells coming from my body. Extra weight and swelling in all the wrong places. Sleepless nights and breastfeeding or mixing formula and daycare expenses and diapers. It’d be vomit and blowouts and second-guessing what I know every time the baby cries and I can’t figure out why. Jim would have to deal with postpartum hormones that shot up out of nowhere.
So when the timer rang and I flipped the test over to find it was negative, I cried.
Not tears of relief. I cried because I realized I wanted a baby. I wanted to see Jim as a father to a tiny, little bundle. I wanted to have a baby that was half Jim’s, half mine. I wanted Jackson to have a little shadow that would end up being his permanent life-long friend.
So that night, when Jim got home from work, we decided to throw out the birth control and he was all too happy to practice making a baby. Two months later we were sitting on the floor of my bathroom again, this time the test coming up positive.
“I still can’t believe you won’t let me in the delivery room,” Jenna pipes up, barely checking her blind spot as she changes lanes. Noon traffic in Chicago isn’t something to mess with, and Jenna acts like she isn’t driving a giant boat through city traffic.
“Well they said only one person is allowed in the delivery room with me, and I guess I’m choosing my husband.” I adjust my position, trying to quell the gas cramps that have been bothering me since five this morning.
“Yeah, but what if the doctor passes out or something? You’ll need someone to step in and help you pull that baby from the chute.”
“Again, Jenna. You are one of my best friends, but if the doctor passes out, then I would want my husband, who is anactualdoctor, to step in and deliver the baby.”
“Okay, but how many babies does he deliver in the ER on an average day?”
“How many babies doyoudeliver on an average day?” Lainey pipes up from the passenger seat.
“Have you both forgotten that I have four kids, three which came from my body. One via the vag and the boys from ‘yee ol’ sunroof,’”she says, tapping her stomach. “I’m very familiar with birth.”
“What does labor even feel like?”
“Well…with Soph it was a lot of waiting around. My water broke, but she didn’t make an appearance for about thirty more hours. So I laid in the hospital bed with nasty contractions, doing my best to remember the stupid breathing patterns they teach you in Lamaze. Then some nurse, who isn’t in active labor, tells you that you need to relax during contractions, and you want to punch her in the face…”
“Ohhh, what about pizza?” Lainey interrupts, pointing out her window to a wood-fire pizza restaurant.
“Pizza works for me, what about you, Momma?” Jenna’s eyes flit up to the rearview mirror.
I rub a hand over my stomach again, shifting in the seat to ease my back. “I don’t know. You guys pick whatever, I probably won’t eat. I’m not feeling so hot today.”
Lainey pivots from her spot in the passenger seat, elbow on the console. “What’s going on? What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know…just a lot of…maybe I have to poop? Or stand and adjust so this baby moves around to a semi-comfortable position? I just feel wildly uncomfortable and I can’t sit in this seat much longer.”
Lainey looks at my belly, up at my face, then looks at Jenna, who side-eyes Lainey as she switches lanes.
“What’s that look for?”
Neither of them answer right away, and Lainey mumbles something to Jenna and points to a side street. Jenna whips over, immediately backing up to pull a U-turn.
“One of you assholes answer me,” I grunt, grimacing as a shooting pain crosses my stomach. “God damn she’s a fighter this morning.”
“Hun,” Lainey says, reaching back to squeeze my bouncing knee. “I think you’re in labor, we’re gonna turn around and go back to the hospital.”
“I can’t be in labor. I don’t have my hospital bag with me. I was going to get a final bikini wax tomorrow so I don’t scare everyone with what’s down there. And Jim’s working. So, no. I can't be in labor today.”
“Babies don’t give a shit about your bikini wax,” Jenna says, trying to muffle her laugh. “Don’t worry about it, we’ll be at the hospital in about fifteen minutes, Jim will be there. I’ll run to your place to get your hospital bag and anything else you need. It’ll be fine.”
I reach a hand out to grip the back of her seat, blowing out a heavy breath through pursed lips. “Son of a bitch, if she would just stop moving, I’d be fine. Or if I could go to the bathroom really quick. I just need to go to the bathroom.”
“Don’t push anything out in my new car unless it’s a baby!” Jenna squeals. “Just focus on the breathing, your water hasn’t even broken so you should be okay.”
I nod the best I can with my head hanging low, focusing on breathing. She’s right that my water hasn’t broken yet, but the more I think about it, this morning in the shower when I thought I had peed myself, could have actually been my water breaking.
